It is March 25th. Welcome to Episode 84 of History in a Year. Today, a frontier general becomes a political juggernaut. Following his miraculous, lopsided victory at the Battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson becomes the most famous man in America since George Washington. We explore how the “Hero of the West” completely shattered the traditional mold of the American presidency. We examine his rough, violent background, his absolute disdain for the Washington establishment, and how his massive celebrity status officially ignited the populist movement that would become known as Jacksonian Democracy.
STEPHEN:
Welcome to History in a Year: America’s First 250 Years.
LEAH:
Join us every single day as we journey from the Revolution of 1776 to the 250th anniversary of the United States.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode and join the discussion at PointedWords.com. I’m Stephen.
LEAH:
And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
It is March 25th. Welcome to Episode 84. Yesterday, we watched Major General Andrew Jackson absolutely slaughter a veteran British army at the Battle of New Orleans.
LEAH:
The timing of that victory was incredible. The news of Jackson crushing the British reached the East Coast at almost the exact same time as the peace treaty from Europe.
STEPHEN:
Even though the battle didn’t actually win the war, to the American public, it felt like it did.
LEAH:
Overnight, Andrew Jackson became a living god. He was the “Hero of New Orleans.” Towns were named after him, songs were written about him, and his portrait hung in taverns across the entire country. He was the biggest celebrity in America since George Washington.
STEPHEN:
But Jackson was a very, very different kind of man than George Washington.
LEAH:
Up until this point, the leaders of the United States had essentially been aristocrats. They were wealthy, highly educated, philosophical men from Virginia plantations or Massachusetts shipping empires. Men like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams.
STEPHEN:
Andrew Jackson was none of those things. He was born into absolute poverty in the backwoods of the Carolinas. He was orphaned at age 14 during the Revolutionary War.
LEAH:
He was entirely self-taught, he had a ferocious temper, and he settled his arguments with violence. He had literally killed a man in a duel over an insult to his wife. He still carried two bullets in his body from various shootouts.
STEPHEN:
He was a raw, unfiltered frontiersman. And the expanding American public absolutely loved him for it.
LEAH:
In the years following the War of 1812, hundreds of thousands of Americans were moving West. And those western settlers didn’t see themselves in the refined intellectuals of Washington D.C. They saw themselves in Andrew Jackson.
STEPHEN:
He represented the “Common Man.” He proved that you didn’t need to be born into a wealthy Virginia family, and you didn’t need to speak French or read Latin to be powerful.
LEAH:
But while the public worshipped him, the political establishment in Washington D.C. was absolutely terrified of him.
STEPHEN:
Men like Henry Clay and Thomas Jefferson looked at Jackson and saw an unhinged, violent military dictator in the making. They called him a “military chieftain.” Jefferson actually said he was “one of the most unfit men I know of for such a place.”
LEAH:
And Jackson gave them plenty of reasons to be scared.
STEPHEN:
Because Jackson didn’t just fight the British. A few years later, in 1818, President James Monroe sent Jackson down to the border of Spanish Florida to stop Native American raiding parties.
LEAH:
Jackson didn’t just stop them at the border. He completely ignored his orders, marched his army right into Spanish territory, captured the Spanish capital of Pensacola, executed two British citizens he accused of helping the tribes, and essentially conquered Florida without asking Congress for permission.
STEPHEN:
The government in Washington completely panicked. They thought Jackson had just started a war with Spain and Great Britain simultaneously. The cabinet wanted to court-martial him and strip him of his command.
LEAH:
But they couldn’t.
STEPHEN:
Because when the news broke that Jackson had taken Florida, the American public cheered. They loved his aggressive, unapologetic expansionism. He was untouchable.
LEAH:
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams realized Jackson’s popularity was too massive to fight, so he actually used Jackson’s rogue invasion as leverage to force Spain to sell Florida to the United States.
STEPHEN:
Jackson had figured out the ultimate political cheat code. If you have the absolute, unwavering loyalty of the masses, you can completely bypass the political elites.
LEAH:
He began building a massive, grassroots political machine. His supporters organized local clubs, printed their own newspapers, and held massive rallies.
STEPHEN:
They were preparing to launch a total, hostile takeover of the White House. The era of the Founding Fathers was ending, and the age of Jacksonian Democracy was dawning.
LEAH:
But before we officially move into the era of the common man, we have to look at the tragic, embarrassing death of an entire American political party.
STEPHEN:
Join us tomorrow for Episode 85. The Hartford Convention. While Andrew Jackson was winning the war in New Orleans, the politicians in New England were threatening to tear the country apart. We explore the secretive, disastrous meeting of the Federalist Party, and how their perfectly timed complaints turned them into national traitors overnight.
LEAH:
I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
And I’m Stephen.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode at PointedWords.com. And this… is our story.